A huge number of coaches handling clubs in the Nigeria Professional Football League ( NPFL) have been screened out of the head coach position for the Nigeria U23, U20 and U17 team, Owngoalnigeria.com can exclusively reveal.
The Nigeria Football Federation ( NFF) is presently shopping for national team coaches for the youth teams of Nigeria and already a host of coaches have applied for the position. However most of the coaches in the NPFL have been dropped from the list of head coaches.
For the position of head coach of any of the national team, the NFF requirements involves a Higher National Diploma (HND) from the Nigeria National Institute of Sports (NIS) or CAF A license. Having both is also an advantage.
Most of the coaches in the NPFL didn’t meet the above requirements leading to the axing of their name from the position of head coach, they can however be dropped to the role of assistants by the NFF.
According to our source at the NFF, most of the coaches trained abroad who applied for the job of head coach have an edge bar four local coaches who are up to the requirements as stated by the football house.
An announcement is expected to be made in aroud two months time with the NFF now at the final stage of the appointment process as they want the various teams to start preparations in earnest to arrest the not too impressive performance of the youth teams of Nigeria last year at youth level.
Osas Mahawi
